Did a few DIY'ers to my kouki..

[SketchyRollin564]

well, i learned a lot by reading this thread haha

i never woulda thought the cowl hood created an intake, but now i see how it works

even if the lip was held by L brackets, it wouldnt be helping you out. Sure it would pervent some air from going underneath the car, but it would just create an *** load of drag cause of how tall it is, and the flat shape

you already messed up your bumper, so you can try zer...age=1 the diamond loc lip, which looks a LOT nicer, or you can shoot for the ebay one

if your getting the ebay one though, it might look a bit off with 16" OEM wheels

either way though, good to see your fixing it up, and good luck with whatever you do next

[spooled240]

thanks guys I get paid this friday so I will most likely try to pick that up. The Kouki jdm wing will have to wait but my rear valances are on a 1 month backorder anyway and I want to paint everything at once to get the match shade of red. I might just mount the lip w/out paint for a while we'll see how that goes.

koukicody, i must have missed your post but thanks for the link/number. I am bummed bout the holes but that lip should cover it up...

[koukicody]

No problemo man live and learn. at least you tried to see if you would like it.

[spooled240]

what is life without some experimenting once in a while? Sometimes you never know what you'll end up with whether it's good or bad.

I e-mailed the guy and he said he could hook me up I just gotta call tomorrow when they are open so they can check if they have it in stock.

It makes it look like a jgtc car

I was thinking about the gracer lip

I thought this shineautoproject lip was the greddy replica but I think they are a little different...the shineauto lip kinda rounds off at the bottom of he main center opening on the bumper. The greddy one looks kick *** but I still like the one shineauto makes.

EDIT: this is a c-west lip replica, not the greddy.c-west lip:

[ThuG LyFe]

that ebay lip looks ok...it seems the jdm kouki bumpers don't really have a "noticeable" lip even if you put one on unlike the zenkis...maybe in person it'll be different.

[dstrcto]

I'm gonna jump in here way late and 'splain some stuff:

First off, the faster air moves, the lower pressure it has.

Second, as the volume of a set amount of gas increases, the pressure decreases.

I could see the hood prop thing working to suck air out, because of the faster moving, lower pressure air moving over the back of the hood and up the windshield. For example, next time you have a soda with a straw in it, blow across the top of the straw and the liquid will rise up the straw. I could see propping the hood high enough or using a cowl-design to induce a swirl behind the propped hood, underneath the flow of air headed up the windshield, possible forcing some fresh air down to the engine and the engine vacuum doing the rest of the work. I think a wind tunnel test on this would be awesome.

The lip-kit theory is supposed to make the front of the car lower than the rear of the car aerodynamically. Since only a fixed amount of gas is entering underneath the front, as it approaches the rear of the car it has to expand to fill the greater amount of space between the road surface and the bottom of the car, thereby creating a lower pressure zone and helping the car stick to the road. If sideskirts were utilized I could see this possibly working, if the front were sturdy enough to withstand highway speed winds. A perfect example would be NASCAR racers, note the lack of a rear valence.

Everyone has their own opinion, but R&D looks cheap sometimes, if no one did anything different we'd still be walking everywhere.

And I hate doing this, but there are several things wrong with this post:

-LIP

if it is even minorly fuctional in stopping air from traveling under the car it would increase the force on the front of the car from an initial stop as now the force of gravity has a larger surface to push against.

I think you meant to say inertia from the static air that just happens to be sitting in front of the car when you start to drive, which will be a negligible amount. That's like saying it's harder to START walking cuz you're wearing a big coat.

If it folds in anyway(which it clearly is doing even at a stop with its ugly ripples) then it will not maintain a constant flow of air over or under it and create turbulance. enough flexing and it could cause the front end to Lift instead. as intead of being l the flex has caused it to / and force going <- will create lift.

even if it flexes 45 degrees it's still lower in front than it was previously blocking some air from entering below the car. I can see where you're coming from though, thinking it would "wedge" air under the car, but I think the path of least resistance in this case would still be around the sides of the car.

-hood propif it does vent hot air, wouldnt a flush hood w/o washer sprayers do almost the same thing. getting any water on their(special on your ebay turbo setup) is going to be a reall bad idea real quick. it still doesnt vent at a point under load(maybe under 10MPH) and in reality I can do the same thing taking my hood off at the track.

You are correct, the lower pressure would pull out air from the below the hood through the sprayer holes, but cmon... those holes are tiny, they wouldn't be that effective at all.

Sorry for picking on you, those things just stood out for some reason.
Modified by dstrcto at 4:45 AM 5/8/2008

[apollas]

rofl this thread is so great.

"my hood and lip is crazy cool and functional""no its not""yes it is""(technical crap)""(more technical crap)""i think you guys are right""hope u learn your lesson"

[ca18detgabby]

I think you meant to say inertia from the static air that just happens to be sitting in front of the car when you start to drive, which will be a negligible amount. That's like saying it's harder to START walking cuz you're wearing a big coat.yep

even if it flexes 45 degrees it's still lower in front than it was previously blocking some air from entering below the car. I can see where you're coming from though, thinking it would "wedge" air under the car, but I think the path of least resistance in this case would still be around the sides of the car.it is least resistance, but a cobalt SS spoiler still flaps in the wind at 70MPH and least resistance for that still would be over or under or around. if it scooped air toward the radiator or IC it would be one thing.....

You are correct, the lower pressure would pull out air from the below the hood through the sprayer holes, but cmon... those holes are tiny, they wouldn't be that effective at all.far more effective then exposing a turbo to water.

Modified by dstrcto at 4:45 AM 5/8/2008

My point was with the vents is that...... in reality none of it is really all that effective



specially if this guy can get away with a stock hood. venting is a bit silly when it screws up the natural flow of air over the engine to begin with. Where a running engine gets hot or not..... hell you can go to the junkyard and pick up an oil cooler off a truck and achive much much better performance for at or around 20 bucks.....

[brizanden]

hey do u have a base? noticed u have black guages.

[i240sx]

Honestly that looks horrible, and extremely ricey.

if i'm not mistaken look like you have some autozone or walmart fog light.ahha

[spooled240]

rofl this thread is so great.

"my hood and lip is crazy cool and functional""no its not""yes it is""(technical crap)""(more technical crap)""i think you guys are right""hope u learn your lesson"

O please-I agreed to SOME of the things that were mentioned like the lip being non-functional if bent back all the way but i do think the hood prop idea works. I honestly believe that driving at 60mph with a propped hood will vent a lot of hot air from the back and the sides of the hood, as the air is blasting through the front of the radiator.

dstrcto's input was EXACTLY what I was talking about earlier with the lip and hood, I agree with him 100%. I did take into consideration everyone else's opinions but we will all have our different opinions on the matter and we'll just keep it that way.

I took off that HD lip and lowered my hood to stock, it just kinda grew on me that the mods were looking like crap. But i'm picking up the Gracer lip (on the white kouki above) tommorrow so that's the end of that.

hey do u have a base? noticed u have black guages.

yep base model. I like the black gauges better tho anyway

[brizanden]

haha im thinkin of tryin to get the silver rings off a set of miata guages to put around mine for now cause they look sick

[coreansurfer]

gracer lip is awesomeall you need is some zenki skirts

and itll look like my old car

[dstrcto]

My point was with the vents is that...... in reality none of it is really all that effective



specially if this guy can get away with a stock hood. venting is a bit silly when it screws up the natural flow of air over the engine to begin with. Where a running engine gets hot or not..... hell you can go to the junkyard and pick up an oil cooler off a truck and achive much much better performance for at or around 20 bucks.....

That's a drag car, he runs for a whopping 10 seconds down the track...

[spooled240]

haha im thinkin of tryin to get the silver rings off a set of miata guages to put around mine for now cause they look sick

hell yeah man, that would look classy and sporty at the same time

gracer lip is awesomeall you need is some zenki skirts

and itll look like my old car

ah yeah there we go...dammit! I already spent time and money installing some kouki skirts! I wish I had the zenki skirts now they match the rear valances and the lip puuuurrfect...

your car is beautiful man, I wanna lick it same look i'm goin for: stock silvia aero with a few tasteful mods like teh gracer lip. BTW, do those fog light delete "turn signal extensions" or w/e u call it...do they light up?

[coreansurfer]

nope they are just there to be sexy, but don't bother looking for them, they were super rare 2 years ago, and now they are impossible to find, i've been looking for more than a year for a set.

[Darkness and Light]

I'm planning on a HD lip for my zenki S14 and my 93 fastback with a few differences. Both my cars came with lip spoilers but both are very heavily damaged, and look pretty bad. I picked up strips of 2" vinyl floor molding that I've test fitted to the bumper and they actually fit fairly well. I'm working on making wooden spacers to give it structure to brace between the old lip and the vinyl and a back plate to give the vinyl more surface area to adhere to. When its done it should be a pretty solid piece that will look very close to the original lip.

I wouldn't count of it for much though. Lip spoilers do reduce the amount of air passing below the car increasing downforce, but it is a function of velocity. To get any practical effect out of it you have to be traveling in excess of 70 mph. On the downside you are increasing the frontal cross-section of the car, increasing total drag. In other words you are decreasing your gas efficiency.

Personally if I were you I would have made mounting brackets and attached the HD lip below the bumper so I wouldn't have to drill holes in it.

[ken240sx]

To get any practical effect out of it you have to be traveling in excess of 70 mph. On the downside you are increasing the frontal cross-section of the car, increasing total drag. In other words you are decreasing your gas efficiency.

Cars are all shaped different, so there's no set speed that the lip will be functional at. For most cars, gas wind resistance become a factor at 55-60mph. Also, look through the article I posted on an earlier page...A lip accounted for 25% of the gas savings in the tests they did. So it will actually help gas mileage, you're not changing the front area really, but the decreased air under the vehicle helps out much more than any minor increase in surface area. It's kind of like when you supercharge, it's a parasitic drain on the engine...but the charger produces way more power than the drain.

[Darkness and Light]

I would like to point out that the article cited is from the 70s. A lot of research has gone into aerodynamics since then. First, the front end on modern cars are streamlined compared to the 70s so more air is able to take a the path of lower resistance over the top of the car. Second, modern cars have their underside streamlined and air passing beneath it is far less turbulent.

Aerodynamic drag increases quadratically. As an example lets assume that at 60 mph there is 25 mph there is a pressure of 25 psi. At 120 mph there is a pressure of 100 psi. Going back down to 30 mph, pressure is reduced to 6.25 psi. Even a slight reduction of speed drastically reduces the effect of aerodynamics.

They saw a 3 mpg gain from all their mods driving at 70 mph, about 0.75 mpg gain from the lip. The average speed of a daily driven car would be far less. If we were to assume that a 240SX would get the full benefit of the gain and the driver drove at 70 mph at all times, based on the 15 gallon (or so) tank on a 240SX we would see a gain of about 11.25 miles per tank, a savings of about $1.60 with a base 28 mpg and $4.00 gas.

Realistically the OP will probably see a $0.20-30 savings per tank assuming the lip works perfectly. In a few years the OP might actually break even on the HD lip.
Modified by Darkness and Light at 1:56 AM 5/12/2008

[spooled240]

Lips that are slanted forward like some of the gracer lips, may have less drag but still carry out their function and improve mileage.

a lip will improve handling too, I saw an episode of "Topgear" on BBC where their race beamer lost the front lip and the front wheels were skidding around the turns..I think anything that will keep the air out from under the car can be classified as a functional lip, and a HD lip that won't bend back at high speeds can do just that IMO.

BTW, the car is back to normal: I applied some bondo on the holes and dabbed some leftover paint I had from painting my bumpers and sideskirts and it looks great-no one will never be able to tell that there were holes there unless they were 6 inches away. OEM never looked so good!

[KLYPH]

It would take too long to quote all the ppl that failed in this thread but I will try to make it short. Front lips are very funtional.. That is a fact, unless it flexes(no sh*t). This paragraph is useless information. Funtion>Form. My car is completely gutted. no backseat, no door panels, no carpet, no radio no speakers, I do have A/C(funtion if you live in South Florida) because I have a vert with a leaky top and Nissan Factory speakers blow anyways, I do not have the door panels out to make my car lighter, Its just my vert door panels are gross and warped but I have some fresh ones that look so CLEAN that I am going to put in when I cut off the door pillars. I threw the backseat out because it smelt like cat piss the day I bought the car. Vented hoods do let hot air escape. For about 4 days before I swaped to 5 speed I drove with the hole cut out for the clutch slave and there was hot air pressure coming out from the hole. Allot of pressure. I also drive all day with my top down and no bolts holding the rubber shift boot down. Hot air is constantly blowing out of the tunnel with enough force to push the shift boot way up. Just the other day it was in the uper 90's down here so i put the top up. I have no headliner. When the top is up there is absolutely no pressure coming out of the tunnel. That is because with the top up the air has nowhere to go. I am also missing the front most bracket that is supposed to keep the top up and not allow water to pool on top of the car. When I am at a stop with the A/C on full blast you would think that there is enough pressure to keep it up but there isnt. only when I get above 20 mph the top just balloons up. Think about how much air you feel from the fan when the hood is up and you are reving the engine. Think of how much air actually goes threw the engine bay when the car is running. When you open the vent in your hartop and you feel more air flowing threw the car is that because it is coming in or out threw the vent?? Im a chevy guy before I am a Nissan guy so dont bring the BS about cowl hoods because that is not the same. A good cowl hood that would have came from the factory on a muscle car will channel the air directly to the air filter. Raising the hood is going to make a lot of space for a lot of air to leave. None of this may make any sence to you but if you read it all thank you and if you didnt and all you have to do is complain the I dont care.

[Darkness and Light]

C'mon guys lets make it easy. Get a tissue and tear it into tiny 1" strips and scotch tape it at different points by the back edge of the hood. Drive up to speed and we'll see what happens to the tissue. A few stray threads would also work.

[coreansurfer]

blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

op fixed his car, it looks sexy again.

we've moved on.

you should too.

[spooled240]

C'mon guys lets make it easy. Get a tissue and tear it into tiny 1" strips and scotch tape it at different points by the back edge of the hood. Drive up to speed and we'll see what happens to the tissue. A few stray threads would also work.

wouldn't the threads just blow straight back and up the windshield? <Kinda like how the air would escape I would imagine..

[Darkness and Light]

Well thats the point, the movement of the tissues would settle the whole issue on what the air is doing, getting sucked into the engine bay or if air is going out. Best of all anyone who disagrees one way or the other is free to try it out for themselves which will help take care of the e-thugs and benchracers.

I actually don't know specifically what will happen with a propped up hood, only one way to find out.

[KLYPH]

Good suggestion. I was going to say the same thing but I do not think tissue paper will hold up. To me it really doesnt matter. From driving a convertable with the top down every day and holes in various places inside the car(lol) I know how the air flows around my car and everyone who claimed "science" to be there reasoning for why air would get sucked in sounds like a tool to me.

[spooled240]

Well thats the point, the movement of the tissues would settle the whole issue on what the air is doing, getting sucked into the engine bay or if air is going out. Best of all anyone who disagrees one way or the other is free to try it out for themselves which will help take care of the e-thugs and benchracers.

I actually don't know specifically what will happen with a propped up hood, only one way to find out.

true, i'm curious myself..

[KLYPH]

Sry my internet doesnt work to well sometimes. W/e. I cant move on because every time I see this thread I want to smack someone threw the computer. Not trying to be an "e-thug". Thats just how I feel. I guess you guys are just used to seeing ppl do stupid **** to their cars that you acuse some modifications that have good intentions of being stupid
Modified by KLYPH at 1:38 PM 5/13/2008

[phanatikz32]

dude i remember your KA-T didn't i run with you up in victorville a few weeks ago?

[spooled240]

yeah man on the canyon run right? I remember you..white z32 with sportmax 006's